A new ESADE-sponsored study entitled “Social Innovation: Pathways to Systemic Change” was presented today at ESADE Madrid by its authors, Heloise Buckland, a researcher, and ESADE professor, David Murillo, track new developments in the social innovation field through the publication Antenna for Social Innovation. They look at ways in which social innovation can become more influential and effective, and stress the role it plays in addressing economic and political challenges. A central strand of the report finds that social innovation no longer focuses solely on covering gaps left by public services that defend basic rights.
The new study provides a snapshot of the huge variety of trends in the field by profiling four social innovation organisations: Avaaz, an online social-activism community with 15 million members in 194 countries; the Barcelona Food Bank, which mobilises 7,600 volunteers and 600 organisations throughout Catalonia; the Behavioural Insights Team, an independent body of the British government that incorporates economics in its analyses; and the community exchange markets that have fostered a culture of bartering in eight neighbourhoods of Barcelona.

I’ve recently begun guest blogging at UBM’s new Future Cities site; this was the first article I posted there. It builds on themes I first explored here in the article “The new architecture of Smart Cities“.

At Birmingham’s Smart City Commission, we have been trying to answer an interesting question: What makes the difference between a “smart city” and a city where smart projects take place?
“Smart” projects will occur everywhere in time. Human history is in part the story of our continual adoption of new technologies, and technologies like sensors, actuators, smartphones, analytics, and “big-data” will eventually be adopted across city systems such as transportation, energy, planning, and social services.

But if a city seeks to exploit new technologies across its systems in a coordinated way to address overall goals for regeneration, sustainability, and social and economic growth, how can that be achieved?